Admin l Wednesday, August 10, 2022
LAGOS, Nigeria – The Coroner sitting in Lagos, examining circumstances surround the collapse of the 21-storey building at 44 Gerard Road, Ikoyi,Lagos has indicted the Lagos State Government for the collapse of the building which killed at least 42 residents.
The 21-storey building collapsed November 1, 2021. The Coroner, Chief Magistrate Oyetade Komolafe attributed the collapsed structure to negligence in adhering to the best practices by the relevant Lagos state government agencies responsible for approval and supervision of the project.
According to him, the supervising agencies deliberately failed to carry out their functions because they were already compromised.
Chief Magistrate Komolafe in his findings, Komolafe, held that the building’s density and setback on the site showed gross violations of the Lagos State Building Regulations.
He noted that the project board which should have boldly shown the sensitive and important information of the names and addresses of the professionals who carried out the project were deliberately not provided.
According to him, “this act shows the approving and supervising agencies did not sanction the offender, suggesting that they were compromised.”
He held that there was no quality assurance/control and poor project management on the project site. He noted that the building structure failure was due to the design errors and combined stress failure of the columns at the lower floors.
Chief Magistrate Komolafe adopted the recommendation contained in the Council for the Regulations of Engineering in Nigeria (COREN) report as the report of the inquest.
He urged the relevant authorities concerned with the implementation of the recommendations to implement it accordingly. It would be recalled that the Council of Registered Builders of Nigeria (CORBON) had also told the Coroner during the inquest that none of its members was involved in the project.
A registered builder, and member of CORBON, Ahmed Babatunde, made the assertion when being questioned on May 17 at the inquest.
